Monday, 30 June 2008

I headed out again today to do hill repeats, I really felt the benefit of these at Mayhem so I definely want to keep them up. Today I went out to Belmont road again. I realised on the way there I would have a headwind, but hey it just adds to thre resistance.

5 times this time, which was my plan.

Climb 1: 6:21Climb 2: 6:35Climb 3: 6:33Climb 4: 6:47Climb 5: 6:26

Once again I found that my concentration kept going, when I concentrated on the climb it was a lot more effective. Got to learn not to let my attention drift off!

Wednesday, 25 June 2008

Last night was the last night in the Tiviot Dale series I went to the other month in the rain, so I headed over again. This time there was a lot bigger field, I think there were 42 starters in total.

Here you can see me right in the middle of things as we start.

Soon we were on our way, those cyclo-cross riders do start fast!

The course started the same as the last race but then went a slightly different way including down some steps and reversing one of the climbs to a downhill. To get some height a new off your bike and carrying section was introduced.

It was so steep they had cut steps into the climb to make it possible to get up.

The whole way round the course I was pushing hard, I could just see Charlotte Goldsmith, who came 2nd female, at various points in the course but I couldn't catch her. While behind me was another girl who was staying a steady distance behind me. On the last lap I could no longer see either of them but I kept pushing as hard as I could. I finished 3rd lady this time, but really enjoyed the race as I was pushed to work hard by having people around me all the time.

In total I completed 5 laps, I was only lapped once by the winners and actually lapped a couple of people myself.

As can be seen from the graph my Heart rate stayed quite steady, and high, throughout.

Average heart rate 170bpm

max heart rate 194bpm

Average Speed 9.4 mph

Breakdown of laps:

lap1: 9.1mph

lap2: 9.4mph

lap3: 9.5mph

lap4: 9.7mph

lap5: 9.0mph

I'm really pleased with those speeds considering there were four occasions when you were off pushing/carrying the bike. I need to start running again as I'm sure it'd help me get faster in those sections.

Thanks to Ali for coming and taking pictures, all her pictures will be on her flickr site later today.

Tuesday, 24 June 2008

Headed out on the road bike for a short ride, plan was to ride over to Rivington then round the duathlon course three times then home via life cycles to say thank you again. It worked quite well, although coming home along Chorley Old road is a lot harder than along Chorley New Road.

Legs felt good the whole way, seems like I had no problems recovering from Mayhem.

Before I took my bike to Mountain Mayhem I knew I had to get my brakes sorted, I had thought that it was all going to be done but on the wednesday before I went down I found out that I would still have no brakes. A little worried a had a look on the internet and found a hope dealer in bolton, life cycles, I headed over there on my singlespeed to see if they could help me out. Turns out they had some on a bike that they could take off and fit to mine, this they did on friday morning (turned into a big job as they had to drill out the screws on the old discs) so I could get down there and race. So a big thank you for saving my weekend life cycles!!!

Monday, 23 June 2008

So on friday after shoe-horning everthing into the car I collected Ali and we went to Pizza Hut for tea before heading down to Moutain Mayhem. We got there and got the text pitched with the other shecycles girlies. Miska had brought a huge tent with carpet!!! We also had two gazebos so we were set up for the rain. After catching up with everyone we headed to bed and woke up to a bit of rain, fortunately it didn't last long.

Miska did our first lap with the run, I had slightly tweaked my hamstring and it was fine cycling but walking was a little sore so I didn't think running would be a good idea. After that I headed out on my first lap, this was to be my fastest lap and I'm sure I could have gone faster if I had pre-rode the course but hey! Also falling off on some of the easy singletrack didn't help, ahh well it'll add to my collection of bruises. Pic below is of our changeover.

After that Vix headed out on the third lap. She was unlucky and ended up coming off into a pile of nettles and then puncturing! Then lizzie headed out (thank you so much for steping in at the last minute) before miska headed out on her second lap. Since Vix's legs were nice and sore at this point I headed out to do a double lap just as it was beginning to get dark. Picture below is me coming through after the first of the double laps, thanks Ali for popping up to check if I needed anything. The second night lap was really hard work, the rain had been falling for a while and some bits of the course were just un-rideable, it added 15minutes to my time. I got back to find out there was no-one to go out, Ali had been given the job of coming up to tell me! As Vixster's legs had got worse so she couldn't ride. I was tempted to head out again, but I knew my lights wouldn't last and I hadn't eaten yet. So after a quick feed I got my head down. Lizzie headed out again by 6am, followed by miska and then Vix to make sure everyone had at least two laps. I was last out and just took the first lap really easy, I was back before 2pm so I headed out again, by this point the course was running a lot better. Ali was out on the course this time to get a picture of me at the top of the Kendra climb. Then it was into the finish, all the mud forgotten about as I collected our medals. We couldn't hang around at the end as Ali had an important meeting today (which was then cancelled) so no idea how we did overall. But probably not great due to injuries etc. I had great fun and will definetly think about going back next year. But my night laps put me off the idea of riding solo, really don't think I could ride for 24hours! Thanks to all my team and everyone else we were camped with for a great weekend. Oh and to whoever it was lurking near the end who cheered me, made me smile.

More pics on Ali's flickr, link over here ---->

Edit: Results are now upWe came 4th in the sports womens category and 429th overall.My laps times were:lap1: 00:59:55lap2: 01:19:09lap3: 01:35:53lap4: 01:14:59lap5: 01:10:25

Edit 2: Results have been changed we actually came 3rd in the Sports Womens category due to the team in 2nd being disqualified.

Thursday, 19 June 2008

Last night I decided to ride down to Whitefield to do the Hit the North preview ride. Now this event is the day before the legbreaker and I am at a concert on the friday night so I am trying to ignore everything in me that is saying I want to ride this event. So I headed off to see what the course was like. It was a 7.7 mile ride down to where they were meeting and since I had only decided to definetly go at the last minute I had no time to look at maps so I just headed down on the road. Turned out there were only five of us, I was the only girl and the only one on a singlespeed, I was wondering if I'd ever keep up. But everyone was really friendly and were happy to wait as I went round at my pace. I got the course to be 8 miles and I rode it at an average speed of 7.8mph. I liked the course and going in the rain was a good time to see it. Only two bits really worry me. I didn't ride the bomb hole, after watching two of them skid down it and I really didn't think I'd get out of it on my ss, but I'm not sure about the chicken run either, it takes you round to the base of the bomb hole where you have to push your bike up - thanks guys for grabbing my bike off me, I was slidding back as quick as I was getting up - I can just see carnage as some people ride it and some people are pushing. The other bit was the wooden boards, they were very very slippy! But a powerwasher might help as I think cleaner ones would have been nicer. Otherwise the course was fab with some great singletrack sections.

All in all its left me confused. Do I enter, can I afford to? It's the first year of this event it's on my doorstep! But I am riding the legbreaker the next day! Help me decided and vote in my poll --->

Wednesday, 18 June 2008

Last night I decided that today I would get up early to go riding. The idea was to do 30miles leaving at about 6:30am. The first part of the plan went ok with me getting up with my alarm at 6am, I then ate, got dressed, made sandwiches for Ali. But it was raining and raining heavily. At this point I thought I had to make a decision, was I turning into a fair weather rider? No so I put my waterproof jacket on and I was out the door and on the bike for 6:43am. I had wanted to try and get out the loop fast (as near to 15mph as possible) but the rain made me slow down a lot I think, especially downhill where I didn't feel like my brakes were being very effective. The graph shows my speeds, the elevation and the red line is a constant 15mph.

Tuesday, 17 June 2008

Well the title is a bit misleading because even in baggies I would have my lycra shorts on underneath. I've always been a lycra girl, I used to own a pair of baggies but passed them on to ali as I found them annoying. But recently I've worn baggies on a few rides and I have been seeing the advatages. Over the year I have replaced my cheap lycra shorts with better quality ones (all bought in the sale) and the difference is amazing, especially over longer rides. But the last thing I want to do with these shorts is rip them, replacing them is now more expensive. So I hunted out the only pair of baggies remaining in my drawer and put them on over the top. I didn't seem to have any problems and now I'm beginning to wonder if I should cycle in baggies more often.

Monday, 16 June 2008

Another nice evening and I headed out with Ali. She wanted a short ride to the Strawbury Duck for dinner. I wanted to try a new path. We ended up slightly on the wrong path which lead to a bit of pushing but then to some nice riding.

Unfortunately we got to the pub and they had a limited menu, which didn't include the meal Ali had decided that she wanted so we headed home.

It was a great ride and nice to get home a little earlier even if I didn't get to eat out.

Today I had wrote in my rough training plan I would do hill repeats over at Belmont. I thought it would be good for me to use a different hill and that they would be slightly longer. This morning I did anything but that but then I was looking at my previous blog post and realised that this was the mental attitude I needed so I headed out.It was a five mile ride over there which was a nice warm-up. Then I did 4 repeats. It felt hard as the hill has a few flatter and then a few steeper sections. I stopped after four as I thought the fifth would be a killer and I wanted to stop with something in my legs.

Each lap was 1.06 miles with 76metres of climbing:

lap 1: 6:21lap 2: 6:21lap 3: 6:42lap 4: 6:26

On lap 3 I found myself daydreaming a bit which I think slowed me down, I must concentrate!

My maximum heart rate was 185bpm, I've not seen it this high since I've been on meds.

The next step is to look at all these attributes seperately and see what I can improve:

Rest

This is definetly something I could improve on, I have got better at it, but I then feel like I am just being lazy. I understand that to make progress you have to rest. But then I can see so much that needs doing in the house or think I'll just go out for a quick ride. I need to learn to build more rest into my day.

Genetics

Not much I can do about this now!

Equipment

Well considering at the moment my full suss bike isn't really working this is something that can definetly be improved. Finances are obviously the problem with improving this to the best possible. But I have just ordered new brakes and have organised new forks which is a step in the right direction.

Skills

This is something I can definitely work on, my riding has come on a lot this year, having increased my mileage that is not a suprise. But I should sometimes go out on rides and practice skills, there are still a lot of skills that I haven't got nailed and my technical riding could definetly be improved.

Mental Attitude

This is probably one of the most important aspects of being an endurance rider. I've been told by numerous people that endurance events come down to 50% training 50% mental attitude. Now if you had asked me this last summer I would have said this was a real strength of mine. i completed some hard events last year for my level of experience and biking and it was definetly my inability to give up that got me through. Now though I don't think I am as strong as I was, being ill hasn't helped with that, I'm getting there and have rode some hard rides. But I find myself lacking motivation to get out and ride at times and I'm not sure how I'll manage day after day.

Nutrition

This is where I am trying to make improvements at the moment, although I know I'll never be perfect. I'm aiming for a well balanced diet, not leaving out things like chocolate cake as I don't think I could cope. But I find I have a good couple of days and then a day when I eat too much chocolate. At the moment to improve my diet I am trying to add vegetables to every meal and eat more fruit. Due to meds I take, I seem to be constantly dehydrated at the moment so I'm looking into ways of improving my hydration levels. Nutrition on the bike seems to be sorted now, maybe I eat too much chocolate but I've not had a problem with running out of fuel recently.

Training

Up till now I've just got out and gone riding, I suppose this would be called the base phase of training. Recently I've added a little more structure, in that I've been out and done hill repeats. But still not much. I am going to read a bit more about training and add some specific sessions in. I think what I need to look at is some high intensity sessions, I seem to be fine at long and steady. This is definetly something I am going to read more about.

Sleep

This is something that I wish was better, I don't seem to get enough sleep and I wake up a lot in the night. It has improved a lot but is still not great. I am going to try and work on this as this will help with my rest and recovery. The one thing I am going to do from now is try to go to bed earlier, I often end up still up after 10pm, so I'm going to aim to be in bed at 10pm every night, maybe even slightly earlier.

Saturday, 14 June 2008

Jon has been asking to do a seaside ride since he found out I can get to the sea from mine. So today we headed out on the southport ride that I did on monday, it ended up a little longer as we had to find ice-cream as there was no sign of the ice-cream van I had seen on monday - I was expecting loads. But in the end we have tubs of ben&jerry's on the sea wall.

Once again I've put the line for 15mph on the graph, although I was slower today, Jon told me I wasn't pushing hard enough!

84miles

Average Speed 14.6mph

Average HR 134bpm

Great ride again, I'm sure I can manage this ride at 15mph, guess I need to try it with fresh legs.

Friday, 13 June 2008

Today I decided it was about time I stopped talking about going and riding to Darwen Tower and actually went out and rode! Julbags off shecycles kindly sent me a route she uses so I had some idea how to get to and from the Tower. I headed out off over Winter Hill and then on to Darwen Tower, I didn't make the climb on my singlespeed, but then neither did the two guys on geared bikes that I passed on the way up.

At the top I had a snack stop and when the two lads got to the top one of them asked me if my bike only had one gear, after answering yes I was asked what it was all about, I assumed everyone has heard of singlespeed bikes. I decided not to confuse them by going on to explain that is was also a 29er. After some polite conversation - had I come far, wow how far, etc! - I continued off back towards Bolton. I found a nice route that took me onto the track across to the A666 so I decided to head over to Peel Tower. After stopping outside the Strawbury Duck for another small snack I headed down the road, decided to leave the footpath as I've been told off on it twice. I cam upon a car stopped to let a load of cows walk down the road. I waited as well and after the last one we both moved on, next thing I know the woman is winding down her window asking if I knew if the cows had anyone with them (she was there first!) it was established then that the cows seemed to be on their own, so I headed back up and found the farmer chasing three cows back, I don't think he was too happy to find out there were another 15 or so up the road! When I got back to the women it turned out the cows had gone into a field, so we shout the gate and left them for the farmer to deal with. After that excitment I headed over to peel Tower, I had no chance of getting up today my rear wheel kept skidding out, but I only stopped twice. I will manage that climb on my singlespeed one day.

Another snack stop and a quick wave to Ali, she can see Peel Tower from her office and I headed home.

Wednesday, 11 June 2008

I headed out on my rig late afternoon today, but I just didn't feel in the mood for it. Ali was out for the evening so I knew I could stay out as long as I wanted but in the end only did a short ride. Too much swimming round in my head!

Well today I decided to do hill repeats again. I want to improve on hills and this is certainly the way. I felt like I could have done another one, although it would have been hard, so I guess that means I was working at the right intensity. I actually headed out in shorts and t-shirt but I was a little cold, so I was glad that I was doing hill repeats as it soon warmed me up!

Last time I did this session my lap times were:lap 1: 4:43lap 2: 4:46lap 3: 4:55lap 4: 4:57lap 5: 4:54

Headed out yesterday at 3pm as I was meeting friends at 5:15pm so I thought I'd get in a bit of riding first. Just before I left I checked my phone, Carolyn's back was playing up so she couldn't make it. I got as far as Smithills when my brakes (both of them) stopped working and my bike was making odd noises, some trailside fettling and they worked for a whole five minutes, at this point I decided to head home and get my singlespeed. Got home and Vikki had text me saying she wasn't riding, knee injury. I decided to be lazy and stay in.

I really must get my trek sorted, it needs so much doing to it and in 67 days it is my bike for transwales, I just need to find a money tree somewhere!

Tuesday, 10 June 2008

Ali and I worked out yesterday that the only evenings we'd be able to ride together. So when Ali got home we had a bit of discussion and decided to head out. It was another lovely evening, so we went over to Rivington. There I showed Ali Jon's 200yards, but it turns out she had rode up it on her skills course. At the bottom I managed to puncture, nice pinch flat, so we sat in the sun while I changed my tube.this point, Ali was a little tired as she had done a long run yestesterday and hadn't eaten since lunch, so we headed up Chinese Gardens, along Belmont Old road, down the cheeky path to Belmont and home. The plan had been to stop for a pint but we were both two hungry.

Lots of photos of me tonight as Ali enjoys taking photos, she has nearly as many of sheep though.

18.28 miles

Average Speed 7.9mph

Average HR 124bpm

We were stopped for 55minutes in total!

This means that monday was a day I did 100miles, not all in one ride, but still good mileage for a day.

Monday, 9 June 2008

Its been over a month since I last took Ruby to Southport, so I thought with the sun shining it would be a good idea. It was much the same ride, except when I missed the turn as I hadn't paid attention to my garmin so took the next turn. But I was faster, so I am seeing an improvement. I was struggling near the end and don't think I took enough water but I enjoyed it. I had set the course at 15mph and was suprised to catch the virtual partner, I tried to keep him on the screen the whole way back, but hills don't slow him down. I finished only just behind him. The graph below, shows elevation, my speed and the red line is a constant speed of 15mph.

Yesterday I went on a bicycle maintainence course at Edinburgh Bicycle. The day started off with things that anyone who goes out cycling regularly should be able to do, removing wheels and fixing punctures. But then we moved onto headsets and bottom brackets. A lunch of subway sandwiches was followed by more playing on bikes and looking at hubs. Overall a great day, good value for money and I feel a bit more confident about trying things myself.

Obviously since I had to take my bike I cycled there and back, about three of us were there before the shop opened and I was asked if I had cycled far, no I replied, the other girl said that she was just five minutes away so not far either, where I had I come from, Bolton I replied. They had to check I meant I had cycled from Bolton, apparently that is a long way!

Sunday, 8 June 2008

I've been developing a bit of a cyclists tan recently, a nice crisp line on my legs and on my upper arms. But Ali says it looks sad and I need to wear sleeveless tops on my bike. Does she not understand its a sign of how many miles you have done?

Friday, 6 June 2008

Another lovely evening so once Ali got home we headed out again, did the loop up to the Strawbury Duck, even saw some ducks on the way.Then of course it started to rain, but not long after the blue skies came back out. At the pub we decided to just carry on home as Ali's legs were sore and we were both tired. Another nice ride

Thursday, 5 June 2008

Yesterday evening I headed out for a ride with Ali. I decided to take the singlespeed as he is feeling a little sorry for himslef, I last rode my rig at SSUK08!!! We headed out off up winter hill, looped round a bit before getting to the mast. Ali said I was dressed as a complete roadie, but since my cyclechat shorts had only arrived in the morning I had to wear them.

The trails were all pretty dry, we could even ride the diversion round the mast! Saw a few groups of bikers out enjoying the weather. (Sunny again, I am getting a cycling tan!!!)

Then we went down the Belmont descent, just after the biggest drop I hear Ali shout, turn round and shes lay on the floor, certainly made me run to get back to her. Turns out she was fine, just couldn't move as her bike and camelbak had trapped her, once i had her sat up we assessed the damage, the bike was fine, a bloddy elbow, grazing to her left leg and a broken helmet. Turns out she had gone straight over the handlebars. After that we went really slowly down the rest of the descent before rolling down the Belmont road to Asda to buy milk.

While I was waiting outside with the bikes I noticed that someone had taken a lot of care to lock his bike.

Wednesday, 4 June 2008

So onto my 6th day of riding, I had really felt it in my legs on the 5th day down in Cambridge so I wasn't sure how I'd feel on the hills round here. As soon as I set off I felt strong and decided that I would try and maintain a good speed pushing most of the time. Since I was using I my Garmin for navigation I didn't look at my stats till I got home.

I forgot to put my heart rate monitor strap on, so I've no idea what my average or maximum heart rate was.

46.93 miles

Average Speed 13.9 mph - this is really fast for me on my local roads, I'm definetly getting faster, I just have to push myself now and not just pootle along.

So as the graph shows this is my longest month mileage wise. More of it was on road this month though. But I'm going the right way if I want a month with 1000miles.

I decided to have a look at time spent cycling, a better measure as I'm a lot slower off-road so cover less distance.

Once again May is the month I put the most time into biking, 69hours, 44minutes.

So what are my plans for June? Well I've cycled 5days straight so far so I want to get my first seven days of cycling. I'd also like to get 350miles in a week overed. Mayhem is also this month so it'll be interesting to see how my training has set me up.

Monday, 2 June 2008

I purchased this after losing my bike computer and deciding to replace my heartrate monitor with something that did both. I decided on a GPS device so I didn't have to buy a kit for each bike I owned and on the forerunner over the edge as I could wear it as a watch when running.

Straight out of the box it was easy to use, recording my route, speed, heart rate. Plugging it into the computer then produced lots of graphs for me to get geeky with.

Good Points:

Finds GPS quickly and I have not had any problems with losing it, it tracked me round Mabie in Scotland with no problems.

I can use it for running, biking, snowboarding and probably any other sport you can think of.

You can set up the screens for the information you want to see, e.g. speed, stopped time, heart rate, average speed etc.

Downloading the information to a computer is easy and by using sportstracks you can analysis to your heats content.

You can plot a map using google maps and then follow the trail on the screen.

Bad Points

It is a little bulky on the wrist. (but I don't notice it when running)

Sunday, 1 June 2008

Recently I've been reading a few books about training, making myself sound serious here but I a bit of a geek and now I'm seeing improvements I want to keep improving. The one thing I have come across a lot is that most people do their recovery (easy) rides too fast and then their hard rides too easy. Apparently easy rides should be so easy anyone can come past you, this is hard to do as an old lady on a shopping bike passing you is a little embarressing. But on monday I went out to do an easy ride, I didn't push on any of the hills - its impossible to avoid hills round here! It was made easier by the fact that there was no-one around when I was spinning up the commonwealth down at 3mph. But the good thing was I am fit enough to do this now, I didn't feel like I was working, my heart rate was 120bpm or less the whole way up. Hopefully this was slow enough for recovery.

I then got thinking about the majority of my rides and on the whole they are just bad intervals, spinning along then trying on the hills but not hard enough for it to be a hard session so I think I am going to add some hard sessions into my training. I guess the aim should be exhausted at the end, I felt like this after SSUK08 so that was definetly a hard session. I think it'll be hard to do this, but once a week is the aim.